Nutrition plays a critical role in maintaining good health. Proper nutrition prevents dietary deficiencies, and also protects against the development of disease. When the body faces physiological stress, proper nutrition plays an increasingly important role. For example, pregnancy and lactation are among the most nutritionally volatile and physiologically stressful periods and processes in the lifetimes of women. Vitamin and mineral needs are almost universally increased during these natural processes. Increased vitamin and mineral needs during these times are almost always due to elevated metabolic demand, increased plasma volume, increased levels of blood cells, decreased concentrations of nutrients, and decreased concentrations of nutrient-binding proteins.
When increased nutrient needs occur during pregnancy, lactation, or any other physiologically stressful state, nutritional supplementation serves a vital role in maintaining good health. Nutritional supplementation is especially pertinent to women contemplating conceiving a child because optimizing specific nutrients before, during, and after the physiological processes of pregnancy or lactation can have profound, positive, and comprehensive impacts upon the overall wellness of the developing and newborn child as well as on the safety and health of the mother. The present invention provides compositions and methods designed to supplement the nutritional needs of individuals in physiologically stressful states.
Further, while some patients may prefer swallowable dosage forms, it is estimated that 50% of the population has problems swallowing whole tablets. Seager, 50 J. PHARM. PHARMACOL. 375-82 (1998). These problems can lead to poor, or even noncompliance, with dosing regimens and thus have negative impacts on treatment efficiency. Id. Administration of vitamins and minerals through chewable or dissolvable compositions solves this problem because the compositions need not be swallowed whole.